You could say I'm on a Deming kick of late. I don't really mind. Nearly every problem I encounter I can walk back to somewhere, at some point, someone isn't using profound knowledge principles. Company missed a quality requirement? Culture problems? High defect rates? Simple mistakes? Each one is attributable to failures to leverage 70+ year old concepts. We have all the knowledge and we aren't using it. So today I'm going through the lesser evils.
Deming's leser evils
- Neglecting long-range planning
- Relying on technology to solve problems
- Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions
- Excuses, such as "our problems are different"
- The mistaken belief that management skills can be taught in classes[40]
- Reliance on quality control departments rather than management, supervisors, managers of purchasing, and production workers
- Placing blame on workforces who are responsible for only 15% of mistakes while the system designed by management is responsible for 85% of the unintended consequences
- Relying on quality inspection rather than improving product quality
In similar writings I've whined about situations and results from these. I think I want to just talk solutions. I tell people I'm a solutions engineer, so allow me to prove it. I will not, this time, beat the leadership drum into oblivion.
- Long range planing is difficult to do effectively. Tools you can leverage, from Deming's work, to assist. Purpose is the first point and should not be overlooked where it serves planning. Along with this is your market research you employ to identify your customer and their expectations. A long term plan I would assemble based on these ideas alone would include a commitment to maintain quality levels. Only accept orders you can fulfill to the quality level you have defined (provided it meets what your customer wants). You will be rewarded in the long term for missing some orders now if you take the opportunity to build systems for scaling later.
- Don't overcommit and sacrifice quality
- Structure growth around the purpose you have established
- Measure your success via customer additions & demand, always seek to improve quality
- Technology is a tool, just like the machines, hammers, scissors, and pencils in your facility. Technology only helps people solve problems more effectively. I like to leverage my technology after I have taken the time to understand the process it will serve. Flowcharts are your friend here. Training though, training and education of people is the key to having tech work for you.
- Train your people well, and often
- Empower employees to improve systems
- Implement mechanisms for process improvement at every level
- Leverage your personnel and their deep understanding of the process to drive what technology is used for what purpose and when
- Do not skimp on effort to build great processes. Look for inspiration all around and understand; you still have to put in the work. Your business will have many similarities to others in function. Only you can build out your processes to meet the needs you have established. The best thing about this, is when you put in the time to build something really great, you will understand where it can be further improved later.
- Supplier relationships should be a source of improvement ideas (both ways)
- Collaboration between departments is a source of systems to use.
- Think outside the box whenever possible!
- Business is business is business. the only thing unique about your organization is you people and your customer. Everything else, when you squint a little, is the same. If you take money for product or service, you have accounting things to do. If you make something or provide service, you have people to work with. Assuming you are special and different is a good way to isolate you from potential useful peer relationships. You should be seeking to constantly improve what you do at all times. Relationships and peer help you so so.
- Constant improvement
- Relationships outside the organization can help you
- Not everyone is a good manager. A good mentoring program can be a start to building internal leaders. Leadership development is something I have seen in few organizations. Fewer still are good at it.
- Start with a mentoring program. solid mentoring structures will sow the seeds of who is capable of and who is not up the manager job.
- Simply promoting the senior person is rarely the correct answer, despite its prevalence.
- I said I would try and refrain from hitting the leadership nail too much. I cannot do so with this one. Leadership has to own quality. Leadership has to make the time for it. There is no way around this.
- Leadership has to be involved in ensuring quality and be seen doing so.
- Training and education initiatives to serve the focus on quality are essential.
- Blame is easy, so let us consider a new method. Even in cases where they may have been blatant disregard for requirement, something is facilitating the event. Try instead to foster a culture where "all outcomes have value". Every outcome is then a learning opportunity. Look at why your system causes schedule pressure. Do you have quotas the system cannot output at all and your people make up for it with their well-being?
- Look at system first, something Deming always focused on.
- Leverage your employee knowledge to fix the system.
- The opposite of a specific management point. Inspection is a "little q" quality action. Focusing on "big Q" quality actions will net you better results. What do I mean by this? The last point was about system issues. Well, system issues create little q problems. When you back up and look at the system in total, you are taking a big Q perspective. Big Q doesn't stop there, it should be on the minds of every leader in your organization. How can we improve systems? How can we plan to deliver quality? One of the best ideas I've come across in the last month: Big Q pays, little q costs.
- Make big Q, strategic, decisions about quality.
- Prevent little q actions from being the only place you address quality.
Lesser evils and start somewhere
The lesser evils will keep you from the potential you seek even if they don't lead you into failure. In every industry we hear about scalability and growth potential. The solution ideas I've pointed out above can help you find antidotes to the lesser evils. Use them.
My Start. Somewhere. programs are designed to help you implement foundational principles into how your business operates. The best part is, they are simple to use. They are easy to teach people and yield immediate results. Don't let these lesser evils rob you of potential. Get rid of them. I can help you exorcise your lesser evils but you've gotta schedule a free consultation first. So let's Start. Somewhere.
